I've been thinking a lot about "curriculums" the past month (so you'll be hearing a lot about curriculums for the following month :) Its all the rage on the homeschool boards come August. Companies, free web site links, blog links with ABC games outlined, "necessary" projects galore. Everyone is preparing for the coming "school" year. At first, I skipped those posts. We un-school, there's no upcoming school year :) But a few weeks of them started to wear me down. I'm a new homeschooler, after all :) Sure, I've done my "homework." I've read the child development books, the learning studies, the homeschooling manuals and unmanuals, the pros the cons the praises the moans. And, like all things in every parent's life, I've chewed on it and spit out what resembles a true answer for my family. But, wait, my answer is different than your answer? And yours? And yours too? Hmm, did I get the right answer??? (I went to school, after all, and there was always a right answer there :) Blend that in with a slightly type A, research bent personality that always wants to be doing the right thing and everything gets chewed twice in this house :)
Then a dear unschooling friend chose a curriculum. True, its less curriculum, more (groovy sounding) homeschool lifestyle, but it was still a wake-up call. We're outnumbered. This was the last chink in my armor. I started reading the curriculum posts more carefully and quizzed her on her choices. Then I chewed again.
And I've come to the same conclusion that parents everywhere came to, eons before me :) There are many right answers. Curriculums work for some families, for some they don't. Some home schoolers get up and do math from 9 to 10, some are still asleep at 10.... I'm thinking all kids would be happy peaches curriculum free, following their heart's, but that doesn't necessarily translate to working for the entire family.
So I skim the project posts sometimes, I occasionally even bookmark some (there aren't all mind numbing, some are pretty inspirational) for a rainy day, a day when P is less, well, P. Because I rather like projects and I rather liked worksheets at times :) But not P. And I'm feeling pretty comfy entering the new "school year" sans school. Its what works- for our family. And when I get to the posts describing bags of different length noodles that kids are to arrange from shortest to longest while saying "shortest, longer, longer, longest!" I quickly skip to the next post :) Obviously, this kind of project works for this family and that's fabulous. This mother needs to feel that she is actively providing her sprout with curriculum appropriate projects. This kid is mellow enough that such instruction doesn't leave his jaw hitting the floor. But over the last few weeks, I've come to terms with the fact that this lovely homeschool vision is not the picture of this Brooklyn family.
My kid's jaw would be opened in a great big yawn. Busy work bores him to no end. Worksheets? Blah. Step by step crafts? No way (unless directed by cute little Suzy at the Mulberry Street Library, that is!!!) Additionally, he has inherited his father's disdain for authority and his parents' creative cravings. So, if I'm in the driver's seat, he wants me to pull over. Quickly. If he's in the driver's seat, he's driving down the road that most holds his interest, learning everything in that path....and you better move out of the way :)
So instead of some choreographed project on lengths, P ends up comparing sticks in the park. Shortest to longest. Or maybe fattest to skinniest. Naturally and impulsively in the dirt, because its an age appropriate discovery he finds innately interesting. On the list of "kindergarten curriculum tasks" this year are a few "math-ish" concepts (shortest to longest among them). A four year old should be discovering x. I'm guessing what's on this list is solidly based in what the average four/five year old naturally wonders about x :) Its what's age appropriate for the masses. (Which, of course, begs the question, what about the kids that don't fit in with the masses?)
Like back in Kansas. P was working on division one day due to some deviled eggs. (My mother makes the most divine deviled eggs, seriously.) P was counting how many were left the next day for lunch, 6, and deciding how many we could each have. Without seeming to do any math, he declared we could both have three. Not brain surgery, I'll admit, but hearing him say "There are six eggs and two of us, so we can both have three, Mama" certainly felt brainy at the time. Then he remembered Papa was joining us for lunch and revised his answer, saying we could each have two. This isn't difficult math, (even for me:) but for this four year old its a (relatively) new concept: how to divide a number into equal parts. But I don't think this is on the "list" until next year - maybe I should have thwarted him ;) Meanwhile, he seems to just now be really understanding chronological order in numbers. He gets the counting bit, he gets how the counting relates to objects, but the numbers as abstracts themselves, are newly interesting to him. He quizzes BB, what comes after 6. When BB properly replies, "Hmmm, what comes after 6..." P quietly counts to himself, "1,2,3,4,5,6...7..." and then announces much more loudly, "7, BB, 7 comes after 6." This, of course, seems extremely Unbrainy, but its where he is ;) regardless of that list for the masses. And I, personally, am uncomfortable hanging expectations and external definitions around the little guy's neck right now instead of letting him have fun with numbers and long sticks.
Smelling the flowers:
Watching the reflexion:
I realized when we went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens a couple of weeks ago, it could have been a veritable sensory lesson, dripping with quizzes of finding examples of the five senses and their aligning body parts. Or it could have been a botany lesson, a history of bonsai trees lesson... But we were just having fun :) Imagining BB to live in one of the Bonsai trees, who's history was then intimately important to P, reading names of cacti to satiate the Little Man's curiosity, feeling the scratchy leaves, smelling the mint, seeing the water reflections, tasting our snack, listening to the birds and the, wait, what's that? A marching band?
And so, curriculum free, strapped to no agenda or unfinished worksheets, we left our sensory paradise and chased down a sound that interested us. And lo and behold, there was a huge marching band, practicing outside a school, the sound bouncing off of the high buildings, creating a massive amount of noise.
P loved it, but it was LOUD:
But as far as "unschooling" this year, I plan on making a minimal amount of noise. Pretty much everyone P hangs with is following a curriculum, and some are openly wary that unschooled kids can learn "what they are supposed to." Like I said before, everyone does what works for their own family. I just hope nobody makes too much noise about what works for our family ;)
Meanwhile, I'm going to make a little unschooling noise here, on this blog, and I apologize in advance to all family members that occasionally read and are bored to tears on the subject. I know, I know, more videos, more pics, less yap :) But as I've researched curriculums and unschooling etc, its been really helpful to me to hear how it works, or doesn't, for other families. There's some fantastically interesting approaches out there! Ours is none too interesting, but for any homeschoolers searching cyber space for answers, I want this to be a place they can hear how it works for one family, one kid, no curriculum.
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